The Stickman

Well on Monday I ordered new rear lower control arms for my Custom Cruiser. I want this car to handle even better than it currently does which is pretty darn well. And in order to do this I need a rear swaybar. Now there are options out there for swaybars but most rear bars are so big they almost require a new front bar. And I am not yet at that point. So I needed another option, and I found it with these Metco billet aluminum LCA's. With these you can mount a stock sedan rear swaybar. They figured out that all one needed to do was to move the mounting holes further forward on the arms. You will notice that there are 3 holes on each arm for swaybars. The 2 most rear holes are for the wagon bar and the 2 most forward ones are for the sedan bar. These LCA's are truely beautiful.
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joe_padavano

Wow! Purdy. Question,however. Are these actually for a B-body wagon, or a sedan. I was under the impression that the arms were not the same due to the different width of the rear axle.

The Stickman

The arms on the B-body wagons and sedans are the same. Just mounted further out on the axle on the wagons. Now this particular set of arms is for the wagon so as to mount a sedan swaybar on the wagon as I have been told there was no stock B-body wagon swaybar. I can also mount an aftermarket swaybar on this set of arms as well so it makes it twice as good as other aftermarket arms.

The Stickman

Ok I am back after the install and I am beaten and bruised. The arms were tough to get off. Seems GM thought it was a good idea to put the forward mounting bolts in thru the boxed frame. What a pain. But I got it all done. Now for those of you that were a bit confused as to how the bars mount I took some pics. Here is the bar with the channel that slips into the frame rail.
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And a close up of the channel
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And the bar without. This is all I will need to bolt it to the Metco arms besides their hardware.
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Now some pics of just the Metco arms mounted.
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And with the swaybar mounted
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jensenracing77

WOW! those look nice!

Redog

Are these the control arms you were telling me about at the show on Saturday?

I like'em and for the price, even better

The Stickman

Yup same ones. I ordered them Monday and got them today and had them on in an afternoon. Now after a spirited ride I can honestly say the arms and sway bar were worth every penny and then some. The car is so much better and it was pretty good as it was. The Eibachs in the rear gave is a kinda soft feeling in the rear but these arms and the swaybar tightened everything up. This wagon handles better than anything this big should ever handle.

citcapp

The install looks great. From your discription it sounds like a straight foward installition.

joe_padavano

Do you happen to know the exact differences between the sedan and wagon rear suspension? It sounds like the arms are at the same relative angle to each other, just further apart. If this is a sedan sway bar, then I assume your LCAs just have the sway bar holes drilled slightly further forward to match the hole spacing on the sedan bar. Is the bar further forward relative to the axle housing than on a sedan?

As you might guess, I'm planning to simply box my stock arms and mount the sedan bar on those...

The Stickman

Joe you are pretty much right on all counts. The control arms are simply moved out farther out on the axles. From all I have been able to gather the only difference is the width of the axles. These LCA's have 3 holes on each side. If you use the front 2 then it is for the sedan swaybar. If you use the rear 2 then it would be for a wagon specific swaybar. The swaybar is indeed further forward as the swaybar is usually slightly behind the axle where mine is right under it. If you are at the GM nationals you can get an up close look at it.